This Dream That was a God (Star Trek XI) Part One
Title: This Dream That was a God
Author: Lymricks
Rating: R
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Genre and/or Pairing: Gaila/Jim Kirk, Jim Kirk/Leonard McCoy, background Spock/Uhura
Word Count: 10,069
Notes: Academy fic that goes just past the Narada. The title is from the Lombardo translation of The Iliad. "And this dream that was a god addressed the king." Also on Ao3
Summary: Gaila doesn't have good dreams. She meets Jim Kirk, and maybe that's good enough.
They don’t meet like people should when they’re in Starfleet, young, and ambitious. They don’t meet at a populated bar, or in a crowded study corner, or in the library. They don’t meet like that because people like them-they never get to meet like that. They meet outside a party, tangled in the debris of the night. They are tired and drunk, both bruised, with makeup smeared on their skin. They are ready to throw the whole world away.
Gaila has just fallen into this newfound place. The humans around her don’t notice it, but she’s certain that some of the more olfactory species can tell she still smells like shuttle. Only a few hours ago, she’d spilled out the door and gone through a rigorous introduction process. They told her how to carry herself, how she would be expected to react to certain things. She is fluent in standard, of course, but she was still expected to sit through a lecture on basic standard. She now knows how to say hello.
It isn’t a skill she uses at the party, because she doesn’t so much say “hello” to the stranger as catch him. Gaila’s smart enough to be amused that already the Federation’s careful politicking has gone awry. The first Terran she makes contact with (who isn’t showing her how to carry herself) is this man, and he flops into her, not unlike a fish. He is warm though, and solid, and that is an attractive trait, suddenly, in a way that it has never been before. They all walk on eggshells around her, and his grin nearly splits his face in half as he explains that he has always wanted to meet someone like her. He’s studied Orion’s carefully. He speaks Orion. He sounds so proud of himself when he says it, and Gaila feels the first bubbles of something new in her stomach. The sensation has nothing to do with sex. Sex is ordinary, and expected, this is different and new. She likes him immediately.
They spend several minutes in each other’s company before he remembers himself. “Oh shit,” he says. “I’m Jim, Jim Kirk.”
She holds out her hand (the lectures had been very specific that Terran’s like this gesture) but he doesn’t take it. He looks at her strangely. Gaila has been studied so many times in her life that the sensation of eyes roving over her skin should not unnerve her, but it doesn’t. This Jim Kirk gives the impression of looking through her, and she knows it’s impossible and also fanciful, but these are the luxuries running away had provided her with, and so she embraces them. She hesitates for a second-and this too is a new luxury, uncertainty and shyness, but finally she says, “I am Gaila.”
What happens next should not surprise her, but it does. They had called “assimilation” a “side effect” of leaving her culture behind. She hasn’t left it behind, not really, but the Federation seems to want to think she has. She isn’t sure why, perhaps that makes them feel better about the security clearance she gets once they realize how good she is with computers. Gaila is familiar with sex and everything that comes with it, but she is caught off guard when Jim Kirk kisses her.
Still, Jim Kirk’s skin is warm beneath her hands and she likes the way his name sounds when she says it, still accented, imperfect. When he said his name to her earlier, he’d said it like a secret. She didn’t understand then, and won’t for a long time, what his name carries. Jim Kirk is just another man to her, but a different sort of man, and she likes that, too. Her first night on Earth is already looking promising. He’s so warm that it makes her shiver. She explores him from the nape of his neck where hair tickles her nose, to his chapped and broken lips that she bites to taste the blood, to his thighs, smooth and strong and scarred enough that when she rakes her nails down them, she thinks he might not notice a difference in the morning. He rasps her name like a prayer, says “Gaila” again and again, and she begins to wonder at the power this man gives to names. He puts so much into the way he says them, and she is touched that he says hers so carefully. No one has ever been so careful with her name before.
Jim Kirk is soft and pliant, willing to give himself away, pressing up against her body long after they remember to breathe again. He slides a hand through her curls and offers up a smile that’s as hollow as it is handsome. She thinks that he doesn’t realize his edges show, raw and fraying. She wonders if hers are that obvious. They are, she decides, but hers would be sharper. Her edges are a carefully honed defense, they are jagged and dangerous, and Jim Kirk ignores them completely.
He laughs into the hollow of her throat as she draws shapes against his ribcage, words that don’t exist in standard, concepts that he could never grasp-she is sentimental and he is laughing, lighter than his smile, smoother than his skin. Gaila has never felt this softness deep in her chest, but his laugh is infectious, and his hand slides between her legs, and she decides to keep this, whatever it is.
She wouldn’t be able to answer if someone asked, but they end up in an armchair she is almost certain belongs to the roommate she hasn’t met yet. She’s been told the other woman studies xenolinguistics. The logic behind the room assignment is obvious. Gaila wonders how long the Academy deliberated the question of where to stick the Orion girl. She is the only one here who is illegal. She shouldn’t be here. She should be on a ship somewhere else, with her own people, and she will be judged for leaving. She understands why, but still thinks it is unfair. She has so much potential, and she deserves a better life. She will have one now, she has taken it from the world without asking and she isn’t sorry, not even a little bit.
They showed her photos of other Orions at Starfleet, and made some introductions. In front of the admiralty they were pleasant, but not kind. They will not be-the word is friends, but she has never used it before, and she doesn’t want to waste it, so they will not be close to her. They will see her differently. She allows herself a moment to miss her sisters and the familiarity of their presence, before she presses her cheek against Jim Kirk’s shoulder and closes her eyes. His chest is warm, and she falls asleep in his lap.
She isn’t sure if her voice or his wakes them up, only that they wake together. Even in the semi-darkness of near dawn his eyes are bright. She stares into them as she and Jim Kirk pant. His fingers grip bruises into her skin as they tremble. She leans into the touch and grounds herself in the familiarity of pain. There is a new vulnerability to their position, and although Gaila has been vulnerable before, she has never been vulnerable like this. She feels so safe-and she relishes the dichotomy. More unnerving than the nightmares are the twin sounds of terror they’d made upon waking. There is a long pause where the sounds of their breathing fill the room and she absolutely cannot look away from him. He says, “Gaila,” and this time it’s not a prayer, but it isn’t an insult either, and he runs a hand through her hair and holds her tighter. She doesn’t need to be held, not really, but he needs to hold, she thinks.
She does not dream after that, but doesn’t have nightmares either. When she tells him this the next morning, he high fives her and calls it a “win.”
In the end, Gaila meets Jim Kirk because they both need something to get tangled in. Their legs and her sheets seem like a good enough idea.
~
Gaila is not afraid of anything. Jim learns that quickly. He learns it more quickly than she learns to stop saying “Jim Kirk” when she speaks to him. He’s never had that problem before, but its amusing. When she finally starts calling him just “Jim” or just “Kirk” she says that she doesn’t like it so much, because she misses the feel of his name. She says it sits heavy on her tongue in a wonderful way. He smiles for the rest of the day, a goofy kind of grin that he doesn’t often wear-and his roommate is obviously freaked out. The kid’s a freak anyway, so it’s whatever.
He feels a moment of satisfaction when he realizes exactly who Gaila’s roommate is. They run into each other in the hallway just outside, his hand posed to knock. “Hey,” he says, grinning at her. She raises an eyebrow at him, actually just raises an eyebrow and walks away. Actually, she kind of flounces away. She’s got an attitude on her that he admires.
It’s hard for him to be honest about Gaila. He could act like its just for the sex-at the favorite bars, people nod at him like “oh, that’s the dude who’s fucking the Orion chick” but that isn’t right. Not at all. He and Gaila have sex, but Jim has sex with a lot of people (Bones likes to remind him) and Gaila is different. With Gaila, the sex is a means to an end. The only way either of them seem to know how to express their connectedness. That sounds stupid in his head, so he shakes the thought off and raps on her door.
She opens it wearing nothing, and that makes him laugh, because it’s so like Gaila.
They go out for lunch, but the place he’d had in mind is full to bursting. Gaila takes him by the hand and leads him away. They end up breaking into Bones’ room, because he has a single and also a kitchen, and she cooks him lunch. They are sprawled out on his floor, drinking and eating, when the door opens. Bones isn’t even surprised, just raises an eyebrow at them. Gaila shoves a plate at him, and he doesn’t like her. Jim knows he doesn’t like her, although he isn’t sure why, but Bones just nods his thanks. He’s polite to the point of awkward, makes light comments that sound like veiled threats. Jim holds Gaila’s hand the whole time, it’s a little bit spiteful, and it’s pointed, but neither Bones nor Gaila say anything about it.
~
Jim wakes up early on the Wednesday morning of his least favorite lecture, mostly because he doesn’t actually fall asleep the night before. He jokingly calls the class “Federation Fuck Ups 101” but that’s not as far fetched as he pretends it is. The topics include diplomatic failures, war failures, cultural failures. It’s basically a list of what not to do when you’re working on a starship, but with examples. Most of the class thinks it’s great-and it is, sometimes. Laughing at the mistakes the Admiralty has made in the past is relieving, but also terrifying. Jim can’t figure out why none of them realize that the Admiralty doesn’t seem to learn from those mistakes.
This particular Wednesday is going to suck. He stares at his reflection in the mirror and thinks about skipping class. He can’t though. People would know, and he can’t. He thinks he might even be able to get excused, and as he looks in the mirror, looks at the circles under his eyes and the split in his lip from a fight he barely remembers getting into, he thinks they might expect him to give up on the class, to quit, to chicken out. It would be forgiven, maybe even overlooked, but that doesn’t change the fact that they would know exactly why he wasn’t there. He thinks of their pity, and he knows that he has to go.
There’s a knock on his door, and he listens to his roommate grumble for Jim to get it. The chrono says its early-too early for people to be knocking on their door. He doesn’t bother with a shirt, just turns to go and open it. The door slides open, and he’s more surprised than he should be to see Gaila standing on the other side. “I brought orange juice,” she says. “One of my roommate’s magazines specifies that breakfast is an important meal of the day, and also the most intimate. We have intimate relations, so I thought it would be-” she stops and tilts her head to the side, and he can almost see her flicking through a mental list of idioms, “the cat’s meow.” Gaila always does this, uses weird, old idioms and phrasings to express herself. Jim laughs for a long time, and he only stops because his roommate starts throwing things at them.
He gets dressed and hooks his hand through the crook of Gaila’s elbow. They find a quiet bench and watch the sun rise, and then they go to class. Jim is full, satisfied by Gaila’s take on traditional Terran breakfast food-a lot of bacon. He regrets eating it almost as soon as the professor strides into the room, and Jim’s stomach turns ominously.
“Today’s topic is the Kelvin,” he announces before he even gets all the way to the podium. The class moves, and Jim can actually hear the way all eyes move to focus on him. He breathes in and out, and then he feels Gaila’s fingers move over his knee. She takes his hand and laces their fingers together. She’s silent, just squeezes, and Jim doesn’t let go of her for the entire lecture. There are no notes to take, no facts that aren’t burned into his mind and memories-even the classified information he isn’t supposed to know is not a mystery to him. He stares straight ahead, but nothing can keep him from hearing every loaded word.
When the class is over, Jim is the first to leave. He can feel every eye in the class follow him out.
~
A few days after the Kelvin lesson, Jim walks into Federation Fuck Ups 101 and realizes they are going to learn about the Orion slave trade, and federation relations with the Orions. He doesn’t remember it being on the syllabus. He doesn’t remember anyone mentioning it to him. Gaila is already there when he sits in their usual spot. She sits up straight, and he looks at her and thinks of how beautiful she is, with the red curls spilling down her back. Her hands are clasped on the table.
Gaila is the picture of stillness. It’s unnerving. Even when she sleeps, some part of Gaila is always in motion. It used to irritate Jim, but he’s become used to it, the constant motion, the vibration of the bed when they share. He misses it now. People don’t even try to pretend they aren’t gaping at Gaila. It’s different from the Kelvin lecture. People respect his father and what he’s done-but Gaila, Gaila the Orion girl who fell into the Federation’s lap. Gaila who lived this world that is only stories and myths to most of these students. Gaila, who knew those slave ships, who knew the cruelty and malice that all living beings are capable of. Jim’s favorite moments are the ones when people don’t recognize who he is. Gaila does not have that luxury, but she wears her heritage proudly. Her secrets are hers to keep, but this has never been one of them. I am Orion she says with every movement, I am not ashamed. It’s true, he knows that she isn’t ashamed, but it’s harder than she lets on. Jim has seen her fall apart at night. He has felt her edges rub against his own.
Almost everyone was early today, and the whispers make the room buzz, and fill Jim’s head with sibilance. He wants to reach out for Gaila like she had done for him, but he doesn’t know how to be there for her when it’s light outside and there are no nightmares to chase away.
When the lecture begins, nothing about Gaila gives any hint of nervousness or discomfort. She asks questions when there are vague lecture points, she takes careful notes, and she doesn’t frown. When people stare at her, she meets their gazes, curious, unconcerned. She is calm and composed. Gaila makes it through the lesson without batting an eye. At the end, it is Jim whose hands are shaking.
When the lecture is over, Gaila is the last to leave.
~
She is stronger than him-and he likes it.
~
Gaila becomes a part of his life overnight, and Jim doesn’t mind it, except for the fact that Bones doesn’t like her. He’s never really seemed to like her, and Jim can’t figure out why. He’s run a million scenarios through his head, and not one of them makes sense. The only logical explanation is that Bones doesn’t like her because she’s an Orion and that doesn’t sit well with Jim. He thinks about Tarsus IV, when a man had declared living creatures worth it or not worth it. Jim can’t do that again.
Tarsus is never far from his thoughts, but he doesn’t think about it often. There’s a sense of shame and uncertainty that clings to those memories. Questions. What else could he have done? Shame. That’s the word. Still, some nights when the three of them are at a bar, he sees the way Bones looks at Gaila, and he thinks of Kodos, who he will never forget. He thinks of the lists, and the columns, and of the way Bones says not good enough with his body, although Jim doesn’t know for what honor Gaila is being found lacking.
It’s hard to reconcile the Bones who pulls Jim back from every ledge he’s ever stood on with a Bones who hates Gaila. Jim spends a lot of time standing just outside Bones’ dorm, his nose and knuckles dripping blood onto the carpet, not wanting to go in to go in, but afraid to leave. There are some nights-some moods-that Jim can’t subject Gaila to. He shares all his scars with her, but the fresher wounds are just for Bones. The doctor has to call him out on the stains in the carpet, raising his eyebrow, before Jim admits to himself that he can’t keep straddling the line between Bones and Gaila. He’s never said it out loud before, but he loves them. Jim thinks of all the moments he’s spent learning to trust Bones, and then of all the times he’s been grateful for the man, a best friend who he doesn’t have to hide from.
Jim is looking for a fight on that particular Thursday. The weeks has been rough in all the worst ways, and although Bones had protested, Jim had dragged both the doctor and Gaila out to his favorite bar. Jim feels every grating second of the week, and his nerves and carefully honed self control are cracking. Restlessly, Jim shifts his weight and alternates between crowding Gaila’s space and crowding Bones. They both know what he’s up to, have spend enough time with him in all of his moods to see the dark flashing through his eyes. It’s actually the only time Jim’s seen Bones share something like a moment with the green girl who Jim can’t seem to shake. If he weren’t feeling so bitter and raw, he thinks he might call this strange truce a victory.
Gaila and Bones make eye contact over his head, and Jim isn’t sure if they’re just pretending he doesn’t notice, or if they’re really thinking that they’re subtle. Gaila tosses her hair and it brushes Jim’s cheek. It tickles in a way that’s just shy of grounding. Gaila moves her hand from her drink to his shoulder, pressing her fingertips against the tight muscles. It hurts, but in a good way. She’s trying to talk him down, she’s offering alternative methods, but Jim feels mean. He doesn’t want that for Gaila, and he doesn’t want to be talked down. He yanks back from her touch and she stumbles with the force of it. Bones is the one who catches her, not Jim. Jim doesn’t look at them as he takes a step back, tripping over his feet.
“Watch it,” Bones growls, eyeing Jim with a disturbing mix of concern and irritation.
“I need another drink,” Jim answers, finally pulling all the way away. He’s halfway to ordering his drink when he realizes the noise of the bar is too loud, the collar of his shirt to tight. He tugs at it for a second, shifting his weight again. He feels loose and tight all at once, and his hands curl into fists at his sides. After a second of debate, Jim shoulders his way out of the bar and spills out onto the street, all barely contained rage and loss.
He picked a good time to step outside. The first thing he sees is a kid. Curly haired and young, too young, to be gearing up for a fight with the bulky guy who’s crowding in his space. Jim steps forward, barely growls out a “Fuck off, Cupcake” at the bulky guy before he’s throwing the first punch. The kid swears in something a whole lot like Russian, but Jim shoves him off to the side, relieved to see the kid is at least capable enough to take the shove on his feet and not fall over. Jim is distracted after that by swinging fists. He’s too drunk to be coordinated, and although he’s holding his own, this is a fight he realizes he might lose. For some reason, the idea appeals to him.
Jim throws a last, desperate punch that sends his body lurching off balance. He connects solidly with a jaw, but unable to regain his momentum, he lands in a heap of drunken son-of-a-hero at Cupcake’s feet. He groans to hide the bitter laugh that tries to bubble out. The world blurs at the edges until all he can see is the foot that’s about to break his ribs and make Bones very, very angry. He can still hear the kid swearing in Russian, and saying something in English too accented for Jim’s brain to comprehend.
All the can see is that boot. He’s just coherent enough to hope that it’s steel-toed.
Then he sees green.
Gaila moves too fast for Jim to really follow, but whatever she does, it’s complicated. Her hair swishes around her face in a way that’s beautiful, even though the rest of her body is completely still. She looks down at him, and all he can see is the curls and her eyes as they hold his gaze. There’s a hardness there, an unyielding strength that he envies. It takes him a minute to realize that Cupcake is on the ground, out cold. Jim laughs until he passes out.
The next time Jim manages to open his eyes, it’s morning and they’re crusty and gross. Light is painted across the room, streaming in through a window nobody bothered to cover last night. His head throbs, but at least he’s warm. When he realizes where he is, he smiles.
Jim is curled up in the good doctor’s bed, his face and knuckles aren’t bloody or sore, and he has the worst hangover ever. When he manages to actually move his body, he rolls onto his side and sees Bones and Gaila asleep sitting up, their shoulders just barely touching. Jim decides the whole night was worth it anyway.
On the floor, sleeping against Gaila’s knees, his head in her lap and her hand in his hair, is the young Russian kid. His name is Chekov, or Pavel, or something, and Gaila calls him both, and also sometimes “baby,” which she seems to think is the best word ever. Jim doesn’t realize it until Bones points it out, but its also an appropriate nickname, because Gaila has clearly adopted the kid.
~
Jim knows that he will never forget the first time he hears Gaila use the word “friend,” because she uses it to describe him. The actual moment she chooses to say it is pretty innocuous. She’s cooking again, sipping a bottle of wine and listening to him whine. Whatever she’s making smells delicious, and a little bit like home. That particular thought leaves a strange taste in Jim’s mouth, because he’s lived a lot of places, but he’s never really designated them ‘home’ before. The pan she’s frying in sizzles and pops, and Jim pictures the look on Bones’ face when he gets back and sees the oil splashes decorating the stove. The thought makes him smile, and Jim sinks even deeper into the armchair.
“Jim?”
“Mmmm’yeah?” Jim calls back, cracking one eye open to look in Gaila’s direction.
He hears her turn off the stove, then the sound of her feet on the floor, moving toward him. He opens his eyes the rest of the way when she lands in his lap, straddling his hips and sliding her fingers up under his shirt. He flinches instinctively, but her hands are warm and smooth, not cold, as they slide over his stomach. “You were in the middle of a sentence,” she reminds him, laughter coloring her words.
“It’s a human thing,” he says, “We don’t finish sentences.”
“Now I know you’re distracted,” she informs him, a little smugly, “You’re usually a much better liar than that,” she shifts her hips against his. He sighs and lets his head fall back against the chair, closing his eyes. Sometimes with Gaila the sex stuff isn’t always about sex, no matter how good she feels pressed up against him like this.
“I think you’re the distracted one,” he answers her. He presses the palm of his left hand into the small of her back, rubbing slow circles against skin and fabric. Gaila is warm under his hands, and the motion of her-the way she shifts and sighs, settles and then readjusts, is familiar, and quiets him down more effectively than any other kind of white noise.
They haven’t slept together in weeks. He knows she’s found an Andorian female who is, as Gaila puts it, “marvelous.” She has a thing for Terran adjectives-says she likes the size of them. Jim used to joke that they aren’t the only thing she likes the size of, but Bones kept hitting him, so he stopped. Jim waits, but she doesn’t say anything. “Gaila?” he murmurs curiously, opening his eyes again and taking hold of her wrists, stilling the motion of her fingertips on his chest.
“Jim,” she mimics, glaring down at him. When he just keeps looking at her, she pushes up and away, pacing in the center of the room and looking at the door like she’s thinking of escape plans. She stops suddenly, grabbing his hands and pulling him to his feet, hugging him and pressing her face into his shoulder. Caught off guard, Jim hugs her back, then pushes her away, trying to meet her eyes.
“Gaila?” he prompts, touching her shoulder.
“You say so much with names. Gaila, Gaila, Gaila,” her impression isn’t bad. “Jim,” she says, staring at him now, her hands framing his face. “Jim.”
“You aren’t fluent in name-speak yet, you’ll have to try standard. Or Orion. I’ve been practicing.”
“You know that Uhura isn’t going to be impressed that you’ve been trading sex for Orion lessons, right?”
“I wouldn’t say trading, more like…bribing.”
“You are not that good in bed,” Gaila says, laughing and shoving at his shoulders.
“Liar. Now come on, what’s got your feathers so ruffled?”
Gaila knows a lot of the colloquialisms that Jim uses, including that one, but she doesn’t hide the fact that their imagery is particularly amusing to her. She snorts, and Jim bites back a comment about how unladylike that is. He wants her to tell him what’s on her mind, not get into a fight with him about gender roles in Terran culture (he’s been there, done that with her, and it had been a nightmare).
Gaila looks at him for a few silent moments, her eyes wide and thoughtful. There’s so much intelligence in her gaze, but she hides it well behind her more obvious beauty. She keeps her secrets just as close as he does, but wears them differently. She distracts people with the red herring of her past, while he distracts them with the bright glare of his future. She is quiet for a long time, longer than should be comfortable, long enough that his ankle gets stiff from the way their legs tangle while they stand there.
Finally, Gaila says “Jim Kirk, you are my friend.”
It isn’t monumental. It’s the kind of thing he hears a lot, often from people who aren’t actually his friend, but from Gaila it feels a lot more like a gift.
“Yes, Gaila,” he says, just as solemnly, “I am-and you are mine.”
Jim has been thoroughly fucked by the time Bones gets back into the room with bread for dinner. He’s pissed, but Jim argues that at least they didn’t use his bed.
Months pass before he and Gaila will sleep together again.
~
Jim will never forget the first time Gaila calls him her friend, but he will also never remember it as clearly as he does when he betrays her. Because at the heart of it all, that’s exactly what he does. He tries not to think about it like that, tries to quash the little part of his conscience that tells him he’s being a complete asshole, but he can’t-not really, and using Gaila makes so much sense. How could it not? He thinks of plausible deniability and decides not to ask her first, just to do it. He argues with his conscience that he’s actually protecting her. The less she knows, the better-the safer-she’ll be.
And so he fucks her, for the first time in months, and that’s what it is. It’s a fuck. It’s sloppy, and vulgar, and his mind isn’t with her, but she doesn’t seem to care. She’s preoccupied, not all there either.
“I think I love you,” she says, and Jim pulls away and says “That’s so weird” and he will never say that word again without the taste of her in his mouth, the feel of her under his hands. He’ll never say it again without hating himself a little. Then tells her he has something for her. He gives her the date and time, and it’s only when he’s getting dressed in the hallway outside her room after Uhura throws him out that he realizes what a big deal the word “love” must be to Gaila. He pushes it to the back of his mind, though, and saunters into the simulation like he was born to kick its ass.
When he “saves” the ailing ship, he takes a bite out of that apple and swears that he can taste her.
~
He is standing outside her door, his hand held over it, unsure and shaking. He can’t sleep. He can’t go to Gaila either. Not now. Maybe not ever again. He remembers her face, the brief glimpse of it he got between the Kobayashi Maru and this moment, and he shivers. Still, he can’t sleep, and this is where he’s always gone when that happens. His knock echoes too loudly in his ears, and his stomach flips as the door slides open.
Big dark eyes and lips pressed together appear, illuminated by the light in the hallway. Gaila’s room is dark, and Uhura blocks any light that could show Jim the interior. More than once, Uhura has looked at him with distaste, with poorly concealed amusement, with irritation, and sometimes even with fondness, but she has never looked at him so angrily-so coldly. His hand is still raised for the knock, and it falls limply back to his side. “Is she-” he starts.
“You should go home,” Uhura cuts him off. “You should go back to your room.”
Nothing about that is a suggestion, but Jim opens his mouth. “I just want to-”
“Now.”
His mouth snaps shut and he takes a step back. Uhura does too, moving to close the door. The motion shifts the balance of the light and finally, finally, he can see Gaila. She is sitting in Uhura’s bed, the covers drawn up to her chin, staring wide eyed at the door. It is an impulse, an instinct, and Jim says her name without thinking.
“Gaila.”
His voice sounds strange in his own ears, echoing in the empty hallway, and it is too loud. Abrasively loud. There’s a question wrapped up in there, and not a little fear. Jim hasn’t felt so exposed in a long time.
Uhura snarls at him and slaps her palm down to close the door. The sound of it is almost funny. It would be funny in any other reality than this one.
The door slides closed and the whole time, the whole second that it takes, Jim can only see Gaila. He can’t move, he can’t speak, he can’t even think. All he can do is see, and see her.
And then the door is closed, and he leans his forehead against it and slams his hand hard against it. He doesn’t get an answer from inside.
“Fuck,” he says with feeling.
~
There is hardly time to think after that.
First, there was the hearing. Bones’ hand on his knee for a second before he stood up. And Jim knew, of course he knew, what the whole thing was about, but he was cocky, he pretended, he put on the show that was expected of him, and that damn Vulcan broke all the rules and caught Jim off guard.
“Your father,” is all Spock had to say, but he said more, he detailed the whole thing, and left Jim reeling and fighting for a response.
He was saved by a message and an announcement, and he saw Gaila again, just for a second, a retreating back, a pile of red curls, and a flash of green skin before she was out the door.
And the rest blurs together as though he is still trapped in free fall with Sulu, and the whole time, through every moment of the next twenty-four hours, Jim feels like he is screaming, “Now now now, do it now, nownownownownow!”
Then it’s over and he’s standing on the Bridge and they have no warp, but he can breathe. He laughs then, because it’s either that or cry, and that damn Vulcan looks at him and Jim can read everything that sits below the surface, and he thinks friend and knows that after all of that, perhaps Prime had a point. He looks around him and all he can see are friends, and somehow that becomes family, and Jim wonders if his father would be proud.
Bones makes them all go off shift as soon as they can, because they’re falling over. Sulu keeps drooling on everything, and, “The ship is already falling apart goddammit, we don’t need to drown it in your drool!” which Bones says with so much seriousness that Jim laughs and laughs.
He and Uhura end up walking down the hallway together, and Jim finally gets the nerve to stop her. There is so much he needs to say, but for a second all he can do is look at her and see her blinding smile on the Bridge, and the way she looks at Spock. Jim is happy for them. He remembers another blinding smile, though, and he falters, his hand halfway to Uhura’s wrist.
“I’d like to speak to Gaila,” he says, because Uhura will know where she is and how she is, and she’ll be able to make the contact for him. He’d do it himself, but he’s so, so afraid that Gaila wont take the call. He has to at least apologize. She can hate him after that. He probably hates himself enough for the both of them. Jim is always being left behind, but this time he left someone else behind, and he didn’t just leave her, he stepped all over what she’d offered him so tentatively. At the very least, he needs to make that right.
Uhura’s face is so expressive, and now more so than ever. Jim can see every motions that flies across her features. There’s anger, and confusion, and then sadness. She looks suddenly young. “Captain,” she says with no malice or mocking, “Gai-” she freezes, shakes her head, “She wasn’t on the Enterprise.”
Jim forgets how to breathe. When he remembers, the gasp that tears out of him is embarrassing. He thinks that he might do something worse, like start crying, or throw up on Uhura, but then he looks at her, and her eyes are shining and the corners of her mouth are tugging down, although she’s fighting valiantly to keep them up.
He thinks of her standing protectively in front of that door, and the weight of what they’ve all lost hits him suddenly. “Nyota,” he says quietly, and she steps forward and he hugs her in the hallway. He thinks she cries, but he isn’t sure. He just rubs her back and remembers Gaila’s smile, and the way she always saw something good in him.
~
Spock finds them eventually. He is gentle when he guides Uhura away. Jim thinks the word friend again when Spock looks back over his shoulder halfway down the hall and stops. “Captain?” he asks.
Jim thinks about how nice it would be to be guided off someplace by an arm around his shoulder, but he doesn’t deserve that. “Go,” he says with a forced smile, “It’s been a long day.”
Spock looks hesitant, but Nyota sniffles, and Spock nods once before he turns and walks away again. Jim watches them go, completely surprised by how right they look together. He supposes that after everything that’s just happened, maybe the time to be shocked about the way things look or the way people love is gone, or maybe he’s just numb.
He should go to medical. He should go to bed. He should go do something. He thinks about Gaila, says her name out loud, and his voice doesn’t shake, not even a little bit. There has been so much lost today. The idea that someone so personal is among them is something that Jim doesn’t have the time or the energy to contemplate. He shakes his head and waits until he’s sure that Uhura and Spock are long out of sight.
Jim, alone in the hallway, leans back against the wall and wonders what the fuck he’s supposed to do now.
~
“Jim?”
Jim shivers, wondering why his knees are sore and his shoulder aches.
“Jim? Jesus are you asleep standing up?”
“MmmBones?” Jim opens his eyes. He blinks. Looks around. He’s in the hallway where Spock left him, still leaning up against the wall, which would explain his knees and his shoulder.
“Dammit Jim!”
That’s definitely Bones, and Jim tries to clear his head, but can’t really do much more but reach out and grasp-something. Bones swears at him, and Jim realizes its a sleeve.
“Hi, Bones,” he smiles as he’s hauled off the wall and dragged away. “Y’know, I was just hoping someone would drag me…but Spock was gentler…sniffled.”
“Yeah, kid,” Bones says, and there’s something fond in his tone.
He winds up in Bones’ room, in Bones’ bed, next to Bones. There’s not enough space for the way they’re lying, but between the two of them, they make it work. Jim is half on top of his best friend, his back pinned to Bones’ chest and his head half tucked in the warm spot between Bones’ shoulder and neck. He’s never been so tired before, and Bones flicks through patient reports on a PADD, the light makes it hard to fall asleep. “Stop it,” he says, reaching out a lazy hand to bat the PADD away. He misses and his arm falls limply across Bones.
“Get some sleep,” Bones sounds tired.
“Bones?”
“Yeah, Jim?”
“I think-no, I guess I know. Gaila, she’s-”
“I know,” Bones says, and he finally puts the PADD down. Jim feels him shifting, and suddenly he’s wrapped up in doctor arms and legs. He fights it for a second, but he doesn’t want to be let go. He’s tired of being left behind, and of leaving people behind. He sags against Bones’ chest and falls asleep.
~
The first time they kiss is between the hours of 0200 and 0234, Jim knows that because he looks at the clock for the first one, and then for the second one, and sometime between the two of those he’s learned what Bones tastes like. It’s not weird or awkward, and he doesn’t freak out, because it feels like a natural progression, and it feels more right than anything Jim remembers in the past.
He doesn’t really think of Gaila, because the physical had just been a way to get to the relationship, and with Bones, the relationship has always been there.
~
At 0400 hours, he hears Chekov’s voice. Chekov, who is definitely not supposed to be standing outside the door to Bones’ quarters. “Keptin?” the voice says, pounding on the door, “Keptin!”
With great effort, Jim disentangles himself from Bones and stumbles to the door. “Chekov?” he says, peering out at the suddenly blinding light in the corridor. It’s bad form to answer a door in his underwear, especially for a Captain, but Jim doesn’t actually care.
“Keptin!”
Chekov looks delighted, which is weird, but it’s an endearing look on him, and reminds Jim a lot of a puppy. That’s also bad form, he shouldn’t be comparing his crew to animals. He imagines Spock as a meerkat for a second, and files that away under things to think very loudly during serious meetings with admirals. “What is it, Chekov?” he asks patiently.
“You are needed on the bridge, sir,” Chekov’s uniform is rumpled, as though he slept in it.
“Acknowledged,” Jim says, then pauses, “You aren’t supposed to be working right now?”
“All of us are going, sir,” Chekov says, “They found a-a shuttle, I think. Floating. Life signs.”
Jim contemplates just running up to the bridge in his underwear, but he manages to pull on his uniform and boots.
“Where the hell are you goin’?” Bones grumbles from the bed. Chekov pokes his head in at that, clearly interested.
“Bridge. Need you up there too. Move it,” and then Jim is gone, running down the halls with Chekov at his side, and when he gets there, the bridge is buzzing.
“Status report,” Jim says to no one in particular.
Everyone starts talking at once, but it’s Uhura he listens to. “I picked up a transmission from a damaged shuttle, sir,” she says quickly. “There’s static-it’s not in standard-”
“What does it say, Lieutenant?” he cuts her off.
“It says ‘we’re still alive,’ sir.”
She isn’t telling him something. Jim looks at her for a heartbeat, “What language is the transmission in?”
Uhura hesitates, just for a second, and he can see the hope on her face when she finally meets his gaze. Everyone on the bridge has stopped talking, and like Jim, they’re staring at Uhura. She almost smiles, and her hands are shaking. Spock takes a step closer to her, his motion protective. “Orion,” she says quietly.
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